James Watt

Instead of instant success, trying days and years were still before them. A patent was decided upon, a matter of course and almost of formality in our day, but far from this at that time, when it was considered monopolistic and was highly unpopular on that account. Watt went to Berwick-on-Tweed to make the required declaration before a Master in Chancery. In August, 1768, we find him in London about the patent, where he became so utterly wearied with the delays, and so provoked with the enormous fees required to protect the invention, that he wrote his wife in a most despairing mood. She administered the right medicine in reply, "I beg you will not make yourself uneasy though things do not succeed as you wish. If the engine will not do, something else will; never despair." Happy man whose wife is his best doctor. From the very summit of elation, to which he had been raised by the success of the model, Watt was suddenly cast down into the valley of despair to find that only half of his heavy task was done, and the hill of difficulty still loomed before. Reaction took place, and the fine brain, so long strained to utmost tension, refused at intervals to work at high pressure. He became subject to recurring fits of despondency, aggravated, if not primarily caused by anxiety for his family, who could not be maintained unless he engaged in work yielding prompt returns.

We may here mention one of his lifelong traits, which revealed itself at times. Watt was no man of affairs. Business was distasteful to him. As he once wrote his partner, Boulton, he "would rather face a loaded cannon than settle a disputed account or make a bargain." Monetary matters were his special aversion. For any other form of annoyance, danger or responsibility, he had the lion heart. Pecuniary responsibility was his bogey of the dark closet. He writes that, "Solomon said that in the increase of knowledge there is increase of sorrow: if he had substituted business for knowledge it would have been perfectly true."

Roebuck shines out brilliantly in this emergency. He was always sanguine, and encouraged Watt to go forward. October, 1768, he writes:

You are now letting the most active part of your life insensibly glide away. A day, a moment, ought not to be lost. And you should not suffer your thoughts to be diverted by any other object, or even improvement of this [model], but only the speediest and most effectual manner of executing an engine of a proper size, according to your present ideas.

Watt wrote Dr. Small in January, 1769, "I have much contrived and little executed. How much would good health and spirits be worth to me!" and a month later, "I am still plagued with headaches and sometimes heartaches." Sleepless nights now came upon him. All this time, however, he was absorbed in his one engrossing task. Leupold's "Theatrim Machinarum," which fell into his hands, gave an account of the machinery, furnaces and methods of mine-working in the upper Hartz. Alas! the book was in German, and he could not understand it. He promptly resolved to master the language, sought out a Swiss-German dyer then settled in Glasgow whom he engaged to give him lessons. So German and the German book were both mastered. Not bad work this from one in the depths of despair. It has been before noted that for the same end he had successfully mastered French and Italian. So in sickness as in health his demon steam pursued him, giving him no rest.

Watt had a hard piece of work in preparing his first patent-specification, which was all-important in those early days of patent "monopolies" as these were considered. Their validity often turned upon a word or two too much or too little. It was as dangerous to omit as to admit. Professionals agree in opinion that Watt here displayed extraordinary ability.

In nothing has public opinion more completely changed than in its attitude toward patents. In Watt's day, the inventor who applied for a patent was a would-be monopolist. The courts shared the popular belief. Lord Brougham vehemently remonstrated against this, declaring that the inventor was entitled to remuneration. Every point was construed against the unfortunate benefactor, as if he were a public enemy attempting to rob his fellows. To-day the inventor is hailed as the foremost of benefactors.

Notable indeed is it that on the very day Watt obtained his first patent, January 5th, 1769, Arkwright got his spinning-frame patent. Only the year before Hargreaves obtained his patent for the spinning-jenny. These are the two inventors, with Whitney, the American inventor of the cotton-gin, from whose brains came the development of the textile industry in which Britain still stands foremost. Fifty-six millions of spindles turn to-day in the little island—more than all the rest of the civilised world can boast. Much later came Stephenson with his locomotive. Here is a record for a quartette of manual laborers in the truest sense, actual wage-earners as mechanics—Watt, Stephenson, Arkwright, and Hargreaves! Where is that quartette to be equalled?

Workingmen of our day should ponder over this, and take to heart the truth that manual mechanical labor is the likeliest career to develop mechanical inventors and lead them to such distinction as these benefactors of man achieved. If disposed to mourn the lack of opportunity, they should think of these working-men, whose advantages were small compared to those of our day.

The greatest invention of all, the condenser, is fully covered by the first patent of 1769. The best engine up to this time was the Newcomen, exclusively used for pumping water. As we have seen, it was an atmospheric engine, in no sense a steam engine. Steam was only used to force the heavy piston upward, no other work being done by it. All the pumping was done on the downward stroke. The condensation of the spent steam below the piston created a vacuum, which only facilitated the fall of the piston. This caused the cylinder to be cooled between each stroke and led to the wastage of about four-fifths of all the steam used. It was to save this that the condenser was invented, in obedience to Watt's law, as stated in his patent, that "the cylinder should be kept always as hot as the steam that entered it"; but it must be kept clearly in mind that Watt's "modified machines," under his first patent, only used steam to do work upon the upward stroke, where Newcomen used it only to force up the piston. The double-acting engine—doing work up and down—came later, and was protected in the second patent of 1780.

Watt knew better than any that although his model had been successful and was far beyond the Newcomen engine, it was obvious that it could be improved in many respects—not the least of his reasons for confidence in its final and more complete triumph.

To these possible improvements, he devoted himself for years. The records once again remind us that it was not one invention, but many, that his task involved. Smiles gives the following epitome of some of those pressing at this stage:

Various trials of pipe-condensers, plate-condensers and drum-condensers, steam-jackets to prevent waste of heat, many trials of new methods to tighten the piston band, condenser pumps, oil pumps, gauge pumps, exhausting cylinders, loading-valves, double cylinders, beams and cranks—all these contrivances and others had to be thought out and tested elaborately amidst many failures and disappointments.

There were many others.

All unaided, this supreme toiler thus slowly and painfully evolved the steam engine after long years of constant labor and anxiety, bringing to the task a union of qualities and of powers of head and hand which no other man of his time—may we not venture to say of all time—was ever known to possess or ever exhibited.

When a noble lord confessed to him admiration for his noble achievements, Watt replied, "The public only look at my success and not at the intermediate failures and uncouth constructions which have served me as so many steps to climb to the top of the ladder."

Quite true, but also quite right. The public have no time to linger over a man's mistakes. What concerns is his triumphs. We "rise upon our dead selves (failures) to higher things," and mistakes, recognised as such in after days, make for victory. The man who never makes mistakes never makes anything. The only point the wise man guards is not to make the same mistake twice; the first time never counts with the successful man. He both forgives and forgets that. One difference between the wise man and the foolish one!

It has been truly said that Watt seemed to have divined all the possibilities of steam. We have a notable instance of this in a letter of this period (March, 1769) to his friend, Professor Small, in which he anticipated Trevithick's use of high-pressure steam in the locomotive. Watt said:

I intend in many cases to employ the expansive force of steam to press on the piston, or whatever is used instead of one, in the same manner as the weight of the atmosphere is now employed in common fire engines. In some cases I intend to use both the condenser and this force of steam, so that the powers of these engines will as much exceed those pressed only by the air, as the expansive power of the steam is greater than the weight of the atmosphere. In other cases, when plenty of cold water cannot be had, I intend to work the engines by the force of steam only, and to discharge it into the air by proper outlets after it has done its office.

In these days patents could be very easily blocked, as Watt experienced with his improved crank motion. He proceeded therefore in great secrecy to erect the first large engine under his patent, after he had successfully made a very small one for trial. An outhouse near one of Dr. Roebuck's pits was selected as away from prying eyes. The parts for the new engine were partly supplied from Watt's own works in Glasgow and partly from the Carron works. Here the old trouble, lack of competent mechanics, was again met with. On his return from necessary absences, the men were usually found in face of the unexpected and wondering what to do next. As the engine neared completion, Watt's anxiety "for his approaching doom," he writes, kept him from sleep, his fears being equal to his hopes. He was especially sensitive and discouraged by unforeseen expenditure, while his sanguine partner, Roebuck, on the contrary, continued hopeful and energetic, and often rallied his pessimistic partner on his propensity to look upon the dark side. He was one of those who adhered to the axiom, "Never bid the devil good-morning till you meet him." Smiles believes that it is probable that without Roebuck's support Watt could never have gone on, but that may well be doubted. His anxieties probably found a needed vent in their expression, and left the indomitable do-or-die spirit in all its power. Watt's brain, working at high pressure, needed a safety valve. Mrs. Roebuck, wife-like, very properly entertained the usual opinion of devoted wives, that her husband was really the essential man upon whom the work devolved, and, that without him nothing could have been accomplished. Smiles probably founded his remark upon her words to Robison: "Jamie (Watt) is a queer lad, and, without the Doctor (her husband), his invention would have been lost. He won't let it perish." The writer knows of a business organisation in which fond wives of the partners were all full of dear Mrs. Roebuck's opinion. At one time, according to them, the sole responsibility rested upon three of four of these marvellous husbands, and never did any of the confiding consorts ever have reason to feel that their friend did not share to the fullest extent the highly praiseworthy opinion formed of his partners by their loving wives. The rising smile was charitably suppressed. In extreme cases a suggested excursion to Europe at the company's expense, to relieve Chester from the cruel strain, and enable him to receive the benefit of a wife's care and ever needful advice, was remarkably effective, the wife's fears that Chester's absence would prove ruinous to the business being overcome at last, though with difficulty.

Due allowance must be made for Mrs. Roebuck's view of the situation. There can be no doubt whatever, that Mr. Roebuck's influence, hopefulness and courage were of inestimable value at this period to the over-wrought and anxious inventor. Watt was not made of malleable stuff, and, besides, he was tied to his mission. He was bound to obey his genius.

The monster new engine, upon which so much depended, was ready for trial at last in September, 1769. About six months had been spent in its construction. Its success was indifferent. Watt had declared it to be a "clumsy job." The new pipe-condenser did not work well, the cylinder was almost useless, having been badly cast, and the old difficulty in keeping the piston-packing tight remained. Many things were tried for packing—cork, oiled rags, old hats (felt probably), paper, horse dung, etc., etc. Still the steam escaped, even after a thorough overhauling. The second experiment also failed. So great is the gap between the small toy model and the practical work-performing giant, a rock upon which many sanguine theoretical inventors have been wrecked! Had Watt been one of that class, he could never have succeeded. Here we have another proof of the soundness of the contention that Watt, the mechanic, was almost as important as Watt the inventor.

Watt remained as certain as ever of the soundness of his inventions. Nothing could shake his belief that he had discovered the true scientific mode of utilising steam. His failures lay in the impossibility of finding mechanics capable of accurate workmanship. There were none such at Carron, nor did he then know of any elsewhere.

Watt's letter to his friend, Dr. Small, at this juncture, is interesting. He writes:

You cannot conceive how mortified I am with this disappointment. It is a damned thing for a man to have his all hanging by a single string. If I had wherewithal to pay the loss, I don't think I should so much fear a failure; but I cannot bear the thought of other people becoming losers by my schemes; and I have the happy disposition of always painting the worst.

Watt's timidity and fear of money matters generally have been already noted. He had the Scotch peasant's horror of debt—anything but that. This probably arises from the fact that the trifling sums owing by the poor to their poor neighbors who have kindly helped them in distress are actually needed by these generous friends for comfortable existence. The loss is serious, and this cuts deeply into grateful hearts. The millionaire's downfall, with large sums owing to banks, rich money-lenders, and wealthy manufacturers, really amounts to little. No one actually suffers, since imprisonment for debt no longer exists; hence "debt" means little to the great operator, who neither suffers want himself by failure nor entails it upon others.

To Watt, pressing pecuniary cares were never absent, and debt added to these made him the most afflicted of men. Besides this, he says, he had been cheated and was "unlucky enough to know." Wise man! ignorance in such cases is indeed bliss. We should almost be content to be cheated as long as we do not find it out.

It was at such a crisis as this that another cloud, and a dark one, came. The sanguine, enterprising, kindly Roebuck was in financial straits. His pits had been much troubled by water, which no existing machinery could pump out. He had hoped that the new engine would prove successful and sufficiently powerful in time to avert the drowning of the pits, but this hope had failed. His embarrassments were so pressing that he was unable to pay the cost of the engine patent, according to agreement, and Watt had to borrow the money for this from that never-failing friend, Professor Black. Long may his memory be gratefully remembered. Watt had the delightful qualities which attracted friends, and those of the highest and best character, but among them all, though more than one might have been willing, none were both able and willing to sustain him in days of trouble except the famous discoverer of latent heat. When we think of Watt, we picture him holding Black by the one hand and Small by the other, repeating to them

The patent was secured—so much to the good—but Watt had already spent too much time upon profitless work, at least more time than he could afford. His duty to provide for the frugal wants of his family became imperative. "I had," he said, "a wife and children, and I saw myself growing gray without having any settled way of providing for them." He turned again to surveying and prospered, for few such men as Watt were to be found in those days, or in any day. With a record of Watt's work as surveyor, engineer, councillor, etc., our readers need not be troubled in detail. It should, however, be recorded that the chief canal schemes in Scotland in this, the day of canals for internal commerce, preceding the day of railroads that was to come, were entrusted to Watt, who continued to act as engineer for the Monkland Canal. While Watt was acting as engineer for this (1770-72), Dr. Small wrote him that he and Boulton had been talking of moving canal boats by the steam engine on the high-pressure principle. In his reply, September 30, 1770, Watt asks, "Have you ever considered a spiral oar for that purpose, or are you for two wheels?" To make his meaning quite plain, he gives a rough sketch of the screw propeller, with four turns as used to-day.

Thus the idea of the screw propeller to be worked by his own improved engine was propounded by Watt one hundred and thirty-five years ago.

This is a remarkable letter, and a still more remarkable sketch, and adds another to the many true forecasts of future development made by this teeming brain.

Watt also made a survey of the Clyde, and reported upon its proposed deepening. His suggestions remained unacted upon for several years, when the work was begun, and is not ended even in our day, of making a trout and salmon stream into one of the busiest, navigable highways of the world. This year further improvements have been decided upon, so that the monsters of our day, with 16,000-horse-power turbine engines, may be built near Glasgow. Watt also made surveys for a canal between Perth and Coupar Angus, for the well-known Crinan Canal and other projects in the Western Highlands, as also for the great Caledonian and the Forth and Clyde Canals.

The Perth Canal was forty miles long through a rough country, and took forty-three days, for which Watt's fee, including expenses, was $400. Labor, even of the highest kind, was cheap in those times. We note his getting thirty-seven dollars for plans of a bridge over the Clyde. Watt prepared plans for docks and piers at Port Glasgow and for a new harbor at Ayr. His last and most important engineering work in Scotland was the survey of the Caledonian Canal, made in the autumn of 1773, through a district then without roads. "An incessant rain kept me," he writes, "for three days as wet as water could make me. I could scarcely preserve my journal book."

Suffice it to note that he saved enough money to be able to write, "Supposing the engine to stand good for itself, I am able to pay all my debts and some little thing more, so that I hope in time to be on a par with the world."

We are now to make one of the saddest announcements saving dishonor that it falls to man to make. Watt's wife died in childbed in his absence. He was called home from surveying the Caledonian Canal. Upon arrival, he stands paralysed for a time at the door, unable to summon strength to enter the ruined home. At last the door opens and closes and we close our eyes upon the scene—no words here that would not be an offence. The rest is silence.

Watt tried to play the man, but he would have been less than man if the ruin of his home had not made him a changed man. The recovery of mental equipoise proved for a time quite beyond his power. He could do all that man could do, "who could do more is none." The light of his life had gone out.

CHAPTER V

Boulton wrote Franklin, February 22, 1766, in London, about this, and sent a model he had made. Franklin replies a month later, apologising for the delay on account of "the hurry and anxiety I have been engaged in with our American affairs."[1]

Tamer of lightning and tamer of steam, Franklin and Watt—one of the new, the other of the old branch of our English-speaking race—co-operating in enlarging the powers of man and pushing forward the chariot of progress—fit subject, this, for the sculptor and painter!

How much further the steam engine is to be the hand-maid of electricity cannot be told, for it seems impossible to set limits to the future conquests of the latter, which is probably destined to perform miracles un-dreamt of to-day, perhaps coupled in some unthought-of way, with radium, the youngest sprite of the weird, uncanny tribe of mysterious agents. Uranium, the supposed basis of the latest discovery, Radium, has only one-millionth part of the heat of the latter. The slow-moving earth takes twenty-four hours to turn upon its axis. Radium covers an equal distance while we pronounce its name. One and one-quarter seconds, and twenty-five thousand miles are traversed. Puck promises to put his "girdle round the earth in forty minutes." Radium would pass the fairy girdlist in the spin round sixteen hundred times. Thus truth, as it is being evolved in our day, becomes stranger than the wildest imaginings of fiction. Our century seems on the threshold of discoveries and advances, not less revolutionary, perhaps more so, than those that have sprung from steam and electricity. "Canst thou send lightnings to say 'Lo, here I am'?" silenced man. It was so obviously beyond his power until last century. Now he smiles as he reads the question. Is Tyndal's prophecy to be verified that "the potency of all things is yet to be found in matter"?

We may be sure the searching, restless brains of Franklin and Watt would have been meditating upon strange things these days if they were now alive.

Boulton is entitled to rank, so far as the writer knows, as the first man in the world worthy to wear Carlyle's now somewhat familiar title, "Captain of Industry" for he was in his day foremost in the industrial field, and before that, industrial organisations had not developed far enough to create or require captains, in Carlyle's sense.

Roebuck, while Watt's partner, was one of Boulton's correspondents, and told him of Watt's progress with the model engine which proved so successful. Boulton was deeply interested, and expressed a desire that Watt should visit him at Soho. This he did, on his return from a visit to London concerning the patent. Boulton was not at home, but his intimate friend, Dr. Small, then residing at Birmingham, a scientist and philosopher, whom Franklin had recommended to Boulton, took Watt in charge. Watt was amazed at what he saw, for this was his first meeting with trained and skilled mechanics, the lack of whom had made his life miserable. The precision of both tools and workmen sank deep. Upon a subsequent visit, he met the captain himself, his future partner, and of course, as like draws to like, they drew to each other, a case of mutual liking at first sight. We meet one stranger, and stranger he remains to the end of the chapter. We meet another, and ere we part he is a kindred soul. Magnetic attraction is sudden. So with these two, who, by a kind of free-masonry, knew that each had met his affinity. The Watt engine was exhaustively canvassed and its inventor was delighted that the great, sagacious, prudent and practical manufacturer should predict its success as he did. Shortly after this, Professor Robison visited Soho, which was a magnet that attracted the scientists in those days. Boulton told him that he had stopped work upon his proposed pumping engine. "I would necessarily avail myself of what I learned from Mr. Watt's conversation, and this would not be right without his consent."

It is such a delicate sense of honor as is here displayed that marks the man, and finally makes his influence over others commanding in business. It is not sharp practice and smart bargaining that tell. On the contrary, there is no occupation in which not only fair but liberal dealing brings greater reward. The best bargain is that good for both parties. Boulton and Watt were friends. That much was settled. They had business transactions later, for we find Watt sending a package containing "one dozen German flutes" (made of course by him in Glasgow), "at 5s. each, and a copper digester, £1:10." Boulton's people probably wished samples.

Much correspondence followed between Dr. Small and Watt, the latter constantly expressing the wish that Mr. Boulton could be induced to become partner with himself and Roebuck in his patents. Naturally the sagacious manufacturer was disinclined to associate himself with Mr. Roebuck, then in financial straits, but the position changed when he had become bankrupt and affairs were in the hands of creditors. Watt therefore renewed the subject and agreed to go and settle in Birmingham, as he had been urged to do. Roebuck's pitiable condition he keenly felt, and had done everything possible to ameliorate.

What little I can do for him is purchased by denying myself the conveniences of life my station requires, or by remaining in debt, which it galls me to the bone to owe. I shall be content to hold a very small share in the partnership, or none at all, provided I am to be freed from my pecuniary obligations to Roebuck and have any kind of recompense for even a part of the anxiety and ruin it has involved me in.

Thus wrote Watt to his friend Small, August 30, 1772. Small's reply pointed out one difficulty which deserves notice and commendation. "It is impossible for Mr. Boulton and me, or any other honest man, to purchase, especially from two particular friends, what has no market price, and at a time when they might be inclined to part with the commodity at an under value." This is an objection which to stock-exchange standards may seem "not well taken," and far too fantastical for the speculative domain, and yet it is neither surprising nor unusual in the realms of genuine business, in which men are concerned with or creating only intrinsic values.

The result so ardently desired by Watt was reached in this unexpected fashion. It was found that in the ordinary course of business Roebuck owed Boulton a balance of $6,000. Boulton agreed to take the Roebuck interest in the Watt patent for the debt. As the creditors considered the patent interest worthless, they gladly accepted. As Watt said, "it was only paying one bad debt with another."

Boulton asked Watt to act as his attorney in the matter, which he did, writing Boulton that "the thing is now a shadow; 'tis merely ideal, and will cost time and money to realise it." This as late as March 29, 1773, after eight years of constant experimentation, with many failures and disappointments, since the discovery of the separate condenser in 1765, which was then hailed, and rightly so, as the one thing needed. It remained the right and only foundation upon which to develop the steam engine, but many minor obstacles intervened, requiring Watt's inventive and mechanical genius to overcome.

The transfer of Roebuck's two-third interest to Boulton afterward carried with it the formation of the celebrated firm of Boulton and Watt. The latter arranged his affairs as quickly as possible. He had only made $1,000 for a whole year spent in surveying, and part of that he gave to Roebuck in his necessity, "so that I can barely support myself and keep untouched the small sum I have allotted for my visit to you." (Watt to Small, July 25, 1773). This is pitiable indeed—Watt pressed for money to pay his way to Birmingham upon important business.

The trial engine was shipped from Kinneil to Soho and Watt arrived in May, 1774, in Birmingham. Here a new life opened before him, still enveloped in clouds, but we may please ourselves by believing that through these the wearied and harassed inventor did not fail to catch alluring visions of the sun. Let us hope he remembered the words of the beautiful hymn he had no doubt often sung in his youth:

Partnership requires not duplicates, but opposites—a union of different qualities. He who proves indispensable as a partner to one man might be wholly useless, or even injurious, to another. Generals Grant and Sherman needed very different chiefs of staff. One secret of Napoleon's success arose from his being free to make his own appointments, choosing the men who had the qualities which supplemented his and cured his own shortcomings, for every man has shortcomings. The universal genius who can manage all himself has yet to appear. Only one with the genius to recognise others of different genius and harness them to his own car can approach the "universal." It is a case of different but coöperating abilities, each part of the complicated machine fitting into its right place, and there performing its duty without jarring.

Never were two men more "supplementary" to each other than Boulton and Watt, and hence their success. One possessed in perfection the qualities the other lacked. Smiles sums this up so finely that we must quote him:

Different though their characters were in most respects, Boulton at once conceived a hearty liking for him. The one displayed in perfection precisely those qualities which the other wanted. Boulton was a man of ardent and generous temperament, bold and enterprising, undaunted by difficulty, and possessing an almost boundless capacity for work. He was a man of great tact, clear perception, and sound judgment. Moreover, he possessed that indispensable quality of perseverance, without which the best talents are of comparatively little avail in the conduct of important affairs. While Watt hated business, Boulton loved it. He had, indeed, a genius for business—a gift almost as rare as that for poetry, for art, or for war. He possessed a marvellous power of organisation. With a keen eye for details, he combined a comprehensive grasp of intellect. While his senses were so acute, that when sitting in his office at Soho he could detect the slightest stoppage or derangement in the machinery of that vast establishment, and send his message direct to the spot where it had occurred, his power of imagination was such as enabled him to look clearly along extensive lines of possible action in Europe, America, and the East. For there is a poetic as well as a commonplace side to business; and the man of business genius lights up the humdrum routine of daily life by exploring the boundless region of possibility wherever it may lie open before him.

This tells the whole story, and once again reminds us that without imagination and something of the romantic element, little great or valuable is to be done in any field. He "runs his business as if it were a romance," was said upon one occasion. The man who finds no element of romance in his occupation is to be pitied. We know how radically different Watt was in his nature to Boulton, whose judgment of men was said to be almost unerring. He recognised in Watt at their first interview, not only the original inventive genius, but the indefatigable, earnest, plodding and thorough mechanic of tenacious grip, and withal a fine, modest, true man, who hated bargaining and all business affairs, who cared nothing for wealth beyond a very modest provision for old age, and who was only happy if so situated that without anxiety for money to supply frugal wants, he could devote his life to the development of the steam engine. Thus auspiciously started the new firm.

But Boulton was more than a man of business, continues Smiles; he was a man of culture, and the friend of educated men. His hospitable mansion at Soho was the resort of persons eminent in art, in literature, and in science; and the love and admiration with which he inspired such men affords one of the best proofs of his own elevation of character. Among the most intimate of his friends and associates were Richard Lovell Edgeworth, a gentleman of fortune, enthusiastically devoted to his long-conceived design of moving land-carriages by steam; Captain Keir, an excellent practical chemist, a wit and a man of learning; Dr. Small, the accomplished physician, chemist and mechanist; Josiah Wedgwood, the practical philosopher and manufacturer, founder of a new and important branch of skilled industry; Thomas Day, the ingenious author of "Sandford and Merton"; Dr. Darwin, the poet-physician; Dr. Withering, the botanist; besides others who afterward joined the Soho circle, not the least distinguished of whom were Joseph Priestley and James Watt.

The first business in hand was the reconstruction of the engine brought from Kinneil, which upon trial performed much better than before, wholly on account of the better workmanship attainable at Soho; but there still recurs the unceasing complaint that runs throughout the long eight years of trial—lack of accurate tools and skilled workmen, the difference in accuracy between the blacksmith standard and that of the mathematical-instrument maker. Watt and Boulton alike agreed that the inventions were scientifically correct and needed only proper construction. In our day it is not easy to see the apparently insuperable difficulty of making anything to scale and perfectly accurate, but we forget what the world of Watt was and how far we have advanced since.

Watt wrote to his father at Greenock, November, 1774: "The business I am here about has turned out rather successful; that is to say, the fire-engine I have invented is now going, and answers much better than any other that has yet been made." This is as is usual with the Scotch in speech, in a low key and extremely modest, on a par with the verdict rendered by the Dunfermline critic who had ventured to attend "the playhouse" in Edinburgh to see Garrick in Hamlet—"no bad." The truth was that, so pronounced were the results of proper workmanship, coupled with some of those improvements which Watt was constantly devising, the engine was so satisfactory as to set both Boulton and Watt to thinking about the patent which protected the invention. Six of the fourteen years for which it was granted had already passed. Some years would still be needed to ensure its general use, and it was feared that before the patent expired little return might be received. Much interest was aroused by the successful trial. Enquiries began to pour in for pumping engines for mines. The Newcomen had proved inadequate to work the mines as they became deeper, and many were being abandoned in consequence. The necessity for a new power had set many ingenious men to work besides Watt, and some of these were trying to adopt Watt's principles while avoiding his patent. Hatley, one of Watt's workmen upon the trial engine at the Carron works, had stolen and sold the drawings.

All this put Boulton and Watt on their guard, and the former hesitated to build the new works intended for the manufacture of steam engines upon a large scale with improved machinery. An extension of the patent seemed essential, and to secure this Watt proceeded to London and spent some time there, busy in his spare moments visiting the mathematical instrument shops of his youth, and attending to numerous commissions from Boulton. A second visit was paid to London, during which the sad intelligence of the death of his dear friend, Dr. Small, reached him. In the bitterness of his grief, Boulton writes him: "If there were not a few other objects yet remaining for me to settle my affections upon, I should wish also to take up my abode in the mansions of the dead." Watt's sympathetic reply reminds Boulton of the sentiments held by their departed friend—that, instead of indulging in unavailing sorrow, the best refuge is the more sedulous performance of duties. "Come, my dear sir," he writes, "and immerse yourself in this sea of business as soon as possible. Pay a proper respect to your friend by obeying his precepts. No endeavour of mine shall be wanting to make life agreeable to you."

Beautiful partnership this, not only of business, but also entering into the soul close and deep, comprehending all of life and all we know of death.

Professor Small, born 1734, was a Scot, who went to Williamsburg University, Virginia, as Professor of mathematics and natural philosophy. Thomas Jefferson was among his pupils. His health suffered, and he returned to the old home. Franklin introduced him to Boulton, writing (May 22, 1765):

I beg leave to introduce my friend Doctor Small to your acquaintance, and to recommend him to your civilities. I would not take this freedom if I were not sure it would be agreeable to you; and that you will thank me for adding to the number of those who from their knowledge of you must respect you, one who is both an ingenious philosopher and a most worthy, honest man. If anything new in magnetism or electricity, or any other branch of natural knowledge, has occurred to your fruitful genius since I last had the pleasure of seeing you, you will by communicating it greatly oblige me.

This man must have been one of the finest characters revealed in Watt's life. Altho he left little behind him to ensure permanent remembrance, the extraordinary tributes paid his memory by friends establish his right to high rank among the coterie of eminent men who surrounded Watt and Boulton. Boulton records that "there being nothing which I wish to fix in my mind so permanently as the remembrance of my dear departed friend, I did not delay to erect a memorial in the prettiest but most obscure part of my garden, from which you see the church in which he was interred." Dr. Darwin contributed the verses inscribed. Upon hearing of Small's illness Day hastened from Brussels to be present at the last hour.

Keir writes, announcing Small's death to his brother, the Rev. Robert Small, in Dundee, "It is needless to say how universally he is lamented; for no man ever enjoyed or deserved more the esteem of mankind. We loved him with the tenderest affection and shall ever revere his memory."